page_title: John Diefenbaker
section_title: Britain and the Commonwealth
hierarchical_section_title: John Diefenbaker / Prime Minister (1957–1963) / Foreign policy / Britain and the Commonwealth
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Queen Elizabeth II and Commonwealth leaders, taken at the 1960 Commonwealth Conference, Windsor Castle Front row: (left to right) E. J. Cooray, Walter Nash, Jawaharlal Nehru, Elizabeth II, John Diefenbaker, Robert Menzies, Eric Louw Back row: Tunku Abdul Rahman, Roy Welensky, Harold Macmillan, Mohammed Ayub Khan, Kwame Nkrumah
context_page_description: John George Diefenbaker PC CH QC FRSC FRSA was the 13th prime minister of Canada from 1957 to 1963. Between 1930 and 1979, he was the only federal Progressive Conservative leader to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of seats in the House of Commons of Canada.
  Diefenbaker was born in southwestern Ontario in the small town of Neustadt in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the North-West Territories which would soon become the province of Saskatchewan. He grew up in the province and was interested in politics from a young age. After brief service in World War I, Diefenbaker became a noted criminal defence lawyer. He contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940.
  Diefenbaker was repeatedly a candidate for the PC leadership. He gained that party position in 1956, on his third attempt. In 1957, he led the Tories to their first electoral victory in 27 years; a year later he called a snap election and spearheaded them to one of their greatest triumphs.
context_section_description: Diefenbaker attended a meeting of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers in London shortly after taking office in 1957. He generated headlines by proposing that 15% of Canadian spending on US imports instead be spent on imports from the United Kingdom. Britain responded with an offer of a free trade agreement, which was rejected by the Canadians. As the Harold Macmillan government in the UK sought to enter the Common Market, Diefenbaker feared that Canadian exports to the UK would be threatened. He also believed that the mother country should place the Commonwealth first, and sought to discourage Britain's entry. The British were annoyed at Canadian interference. Britain's initial attempt to enter the Common Market was vetoed by French President Charles de Gaulle.
  Through 1959, the Diefenbaker government had a policy of not criticizing South Africa and its apartheid government. In this stance, Diefenbaker had the support of the Liberals but not that of CCF leader Hazen Argue. In 1960, however, the South Africans sought to maintain membership in the Commonwealth even if South African white voters chose to make the country a republic in a referendum scheduled for later that year. South Africa asked that year's Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference to allow it to remain in the Commonwealth regardless of the result of the referendum. Diefenbaker privately expressed his distaste for apartheid to South African External Affairs Minister Eric Louw and urged him to give the black and coloured people of South Africa at least the minimal representation they had originally had. Louw, attending the conference as Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd recovered from an assassination attempt, refused. The conference resolved that an advance decision would be interfering in South Africa's internal affairs.
  On October 5, 1960, South Africa's white voters decided to make the country a republic. At the Prime Ministers' Conference in 1961, Verwoerd formally applied for South Africa to remain in the Commonwealth. The prime ministers were divided; Diefenbaker broke the deadlock by proposing that South Africa only be re-admitted if it joined other states in condemning apartheid in principle. Once it became clear that South Africa's membership would be rejected, Verwoerd withdrew his country's application to remain in the Commonwealth and left the group. According to Peter Newman, this was "Diefenbaker's most important contribution to international politics ... Diefenbaker flew home, a hero."
caption: Diefenbaker stands to the right of Queen Elizabeth II at the 1960 Commonwealth Prime Minister's Conference.
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